Kallis’ trip…. Dave’s Rabbit, Chapter THREE

CHAPTER THREE

You know that jolt that you get when you are just falling asleep, like you have fallen off the bed backwards, dropped a couple of feet? There’s a proper name for it – I think it’s a hypnagogic jolt. Anyhow, as Kallis closed her eyes and dozed for a moment, this jolt was what she felt. She opened her eyes and slowly stood up. She knew she was on the ground, on top of the Tor, her boots on Dave’s sleeping bag, but she was somehow also high above the Tor, looking down on herself and the sleeping Dave. No, she was on the ground. Look, she could see her own hand and touch her face; she wasn’t dreaming. And yet, how come she also had a view down from the sky, as though she was about 50 metres tall? Her whole body felt elongated, her legs endless. She took a step forward. She was now above the Chalice Well gardens. She could see the spring and the people there, a tree with little coloured streamers hanging down from its branches. A couple more steps forward, she started to run towards the small city of Wells, the cathedral and the green in front of it. Then Kallis was somehow standing on this green and looking at the top of the cathedral in front of her. ‘This cannot be real, what is happening to me?!’

Kallis was elated and yet terrified at the same time. She looked down at the people on the green as they passed about their business: tourists pointing at the cathedral, a couple walking a dog, an elderly gentleman out for a stroll. Nobody seemed to be aware of her presence as she towered high above them. A pigeon flew past her face; she felt the light breeze as he went and heard the wheel of his wings. He also seemed unaware of her. Yet Kallis was still aware of her feet, in their little purple boots, standing now on the grass of the cathedral green. It was a most peculiar feeling to say the least. Kallis looked up towards the sky. It was still sunny with just a few clouds scudding about.

As she continued to gaze up into the blueness she felt herself expanding even further, an enormous pressure building in her chest. She felt fear and panic now and started to run, her phantom legs carrying her in great leaps and bounds across the moor lands of Somerset. The world seemed to be slowing down, while she was speeding up, the pressure building.

Kallis crossed the Bristol Channel in one big bound, jumping right over the mud and the grey water, the boats and the seagulls, the cars queuing to pay the toll fees. She was suddenly aware that she was in the town of Newport. She must have instinctively been running towards ‘home’, where she had felt safe and loved, where her Mother was still living even now.

The high street in Newport was busy and bustling. Kallis suddenly realised she was back down to her normal height. The town, however, was not quite as she remembered it. The air seemed to have a yellowish cast to it. The cars looked strange, the same and yet – bigger somehow, odd colours, makes she had not seen before. Kallis turned to the people passing her. Normally she felt quite small, being just five feet tall in her doc martens, and most people did seem taller than her, but THESE people were huge and – Kallis squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again, she couldn’t seem to focus well on anything. These people were not really people, human; they had scaly skin and moved strangely, with a sort of loping gait. Their feet were bare and clawed, their eyes small and lidded the wrong way; they had enormous and very visible teeth. They were naked as far as Kallis could tell, although many of them were tattooed with bright colours and some of them seemed to have metal chains and piercings about them.

‘They are like dinosaurs,` thought Kallis, ‘only they are civilised and living in this town!’
Kallis had a high pitched buzzing in her ears, adding to her confusion.
I’m not well’, thought Kallis,’ I am hallucinating. This is a bad dream.’

Kallis moved slowly down the high street. Nobody took any notice of her. It was as if she was invisible, and yet nobody walked into her either. The shops were different too; Kallis was not able to read any of the shop signs or make out what they were selling.
Kallis sank down onto a bench. This also was too big and her legs dangled. The buzzing in her ears increased. Kallis put her head in her hands.

Peace descended upon her. She was in a warm, dark, welcoming place. Kallis was still Kallis, but she was also a part of the world. She felt the trees swaying gently in the wind, the grass growing and pushing up through the rich soil. She was with the birds circling in the sky, the sheer joy of the warm thermal carrying her ever upwards. She was the cat curled in the corner of the garden shed, a content belly full of cat food; she was the hungry lion roaming the plains of Africa in search if a wildebeest for lunch. As the Earth turned on its axis and spun through the Universe, Kallis spun with it. Kallis felt all of these things at once, all connected, all one.

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